- TORONTO - A wide variety
of prescription drugs are turning up in lakes and rivers and could be
posing
an environmental hazard, scientists say.
-
- Researchers have found the drugs don't disappear
harmlessly
in our digestives systems. The drugs are excreted but sewage treatment
plants aren't designed to deal with the chemicals.
-
- Some scientists think the pharmacological soup could
be causing distubing changes to aquatic life. In some cases, male rainbow
trout are starting to become more female.
-
- The male fish are producing a protein that is the first
step in eventually making eggs, said scientist Mark Servos of Environment
Canada's National Water Research Institute in Burlington, Ont.
-
- Servos thinks the change is caused by a chemical in birth
control pills that is ending up the environment.
-
- Using highly sensitive equipment, scientists have found
ibuprofin and other anti-inflammatory drugs, pain killers and
cholesterol-lowering
drugs in Hamilton Harbour.
-
- Chemicals from excreted drugs end up back in lakes and
rivers Servos said scientists don't know if the drugs could also end up
in drinking water.
-
- In a related study, a team of researchers at Johns
Hopkins
University in Baltimore concluded antidepressants, anticonvulsants,
anticancer
drugs and antimicrobials are the pharmaceuticals that are most likely to
be found at toxic levels in the environment.
-
- "We certainly don't have any evidence that most
pharmaceuticals pose a human health risk, although the presence of
carcinogens
or teratogens (agents causing birth defects) even at low concentrations
is of potential human health concern," said Padma Venkatraman, a
postdoctoral
fellow at Johns Hopkins.
-
- Their conclusions were based on a survey of the 200 most
sold and prescribed drugs in the United States. The results were presented
Wednesday at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society.
-
- Health Canada is also working on a series of studies,
and its drug approval process now includes an environmental
assessment.
-
- "There isn't any indication that this is a problem
but that we are looking into it to make sure that this doesn't become a
problem in the future," said Karen Proud, a manager of environmental
assessment regulations for the department.
-
- http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/04/11/drugs_envt020411
|
